Palmer Museum of Art's The Art of Music performance series continues at 12:10 p.m. today with the sounds of the French horn.

Lisa Bontrager, French horn professor, will lead three Penn State undergraduate and three graduate students in the performance of four musical pieces by composer Paul Basler.

"This music is very accessible," Bontrager said. "It is wonderful and just fun to listen to."

Requested specifically by the museum, this performance is the January segment of The Art of Music performance series, which began in September and has continued through the school year. Each month brings a new type of music, including a tenor singer and a chamber choir, said Joyce Robinson, the museum curator.

"This series was inspired by a concert that had a piano in it that an artist had painted," Robinson said. "None of the performances involve a piano, though, because we don't have a piano."

The museum is featuring musical performances because the College of Arts and Architecture, with which the museum cooperates, contains the School of Music, Robinson said.

"We like to encourage collegiality," Robinson said. "We also like to have music with art exhibits to make connections and serve the School of Music, because they have so many talented students and professors."

With the series in the museum, the performers are very close to the audience, Bontrager said. "It is a very intimate setting, which appeals to people," she said.

The show will also showcase the predecessor of the French horn, the natural horn. Chris Naugle (graduate-music performance) said the evolution of the horn and how it came into the concert hall would be presented.

"When the natural horn moved inside, it got a bit smaller but still didn't have any valves on it," he said. "This is the type of horn that you hang on the Christmas tree."

Natural horns include the hunting horn, baroque horn and orchestral horn, all of which will be presented in today's performance, Naugle said.

The demonstration will then move to the modern horn, where the valves were added to change the fundamental tone series of the horn, making it able to play all keys.

"It is an interesting historical perspective to see what the French horn has come from, just to see the evolution of things," Naugle said. "There are fascinating details about the predecessor. So many people have told me that this is the most beautiful sounding of all instruments."

The horn choir participating will be performing in groups of four and five, Kelly DelVecchio (senior-French horn performance) said. She said all the musicians performing have played together before and practiced only a few times prior to today.

"When you have musicians of this quality, you don't need to rehearse over and over again," DelVecchio said.

This is not the only performance for the French horn musicians this semester. Each spring, a horn ensemble plays for mostly musicians' family and friends, DelVecchio said.

"There are always events going on," DelVecchio said. "Students are so busy that they have to be picky about what they go to see."

The horn ensemble has also performed in the program Bach's Lunch, held every Thursday at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, DelVecchio said.

"I prefer multiple horns better than a solo horn because they sound better together," DelVecchio said. "I think the French horn is the prettiest sounding instrument."